Hidden Among the Trees
by Miss Lead
Summary: Because of him, it all started, because he didn't stop. Now she's killing them, one by one. A horrific chain of events because of one cat's actions; a story about the she-cat that finally snapped. No one saw in time, no one saw her hidden among the trees.


A/N:

This is a three-shot. :D

Reviews make me happy. Even just an "uptaadeete plzzz" is nice. :3 I'll put this on my higher-priority story list or lower-priority depending on how many reviews i get. it's how i roll. ;O

_"Please stop! It hurts, please--stop!"_

But he hadn't listened to her wailing. He had caused her hurt, and now she would have her revenge. No one wold believe her about what had happened anyway, so she figured she'd better kill him before she was driven out, so he wouldn't have the satisfaction of seeing her driven out, pleading the Clan to listen. In the plain brown-tabby's mind, it made perfect sense.

'_They always said my fur was a little plain, but I can put it to great use. He wont see me hidden among the trees until it's too late._' The she-cat though in satisfaction as she watched her mark pad closer to the tiny pond. She waited, already in position to pounce. He had taught her how to sneak up on cats, he had taught her how to pounce. She was better at it than any other apprentice in the Clan, she knew, she just didn't show it. She always acted clumsy and normal so no one would notice her. She liked her dull fur, because it helped with being unnoticed. _But _he_ had noticed her._ He _would regret it. _Did he really think that he could take advantage of her without punishment?

The brown tabby watched with her green eyes, watched as he got closer and closer. The fool walked without a care in the world; he was unfit to be deputy. He was unfit to be alive. Anger pulsed thorugh her, fueling her as she narrowed her eyes. He was at the pond now, his silver fur gleaming in the starlight. There was no moon to shine tonight; StarClan would not be able to object to what she would do, if they could even see her hidden among the trees.

He bent over to drink, vulnerable.

She pounced.

For the deputy of ThunderClan, this cat was pathetically weak. Maybe it was because the young cat took him by surprise, but she knocked him down easily in his vulnerable position, slashing and tearing blindly. Then she realized his shock would not last forever and he could easily kill her, so she started biting at his neck. He was getting up now, and pushed her off with a snarl, bleeding badly but stilll managing to stand. Before he could strike her, she jumped and slashed at his eyes, but he saw her coming and duck. Satisfaction shot through her; she had managed to at least get his left eye. He let out a hoarse yowl of shock and pain.

Vulnerable again, the silly cat.

She threw her body against him as hard as she could, and bit his neck, shaking her head swiftly and hard. She needed it to break before he found the strength to push her off.

There it was; the satisfying snap.

She pushed his body into the pond and rubbed against him; she had went into a small unnoticed part of WindClan and rolled in the grass, then moved foxdung over it to cover her scent. She was very clever, see. Now it looked like a WindClanner had killed him, and with that WindClan cat turned rogue on the loose, there wouldn't even be tension between the Clans, just another thing added on to that ex-WindClan warrior's accusations. Supposedly he had already killed two warriors, one a ShadowClan warrior, so whatever.

No one would suspect her, the plain cat, the boring cat, the one hidden among the trees.

* * *

Twigpaw yawned herself awake, feeling the nudge from who she presumed to be Hailpaw, one of her three denmates. She muttered that she was awake and the nudging stopped. It wasn't like Hailpaw was asking to go hunt or anything, he just saw it his duty as the eldest apprentice to wake everyone up on time. No one hated him for it; he wasn't bossy, just dedicated to his Clan. He stood out, and though Hailpaw was relatively kind, he was not able to see through the trees.

So he was as oblivious as the rest of him, though snow-white cat called himself wise.

"Hey, Twigpaw," Twilightpaw was walking into the den, "wanna go hunting?"

Twilightpaw always found ways to amaze Twigpaw. He was genuine and naive, yet he was the son of _him_. Twigpaw assumed that he took after his mother, or maybe he was just the oddball of the family. But all the same, he was the closest Twigpaw had to a 'friend'. Perhaps if he wasn't the son of the ex-deputy, he would have been able to see beyond the trees.

But he was and he couldn't.

"Sure, why not?" Twigpaw shrugged, getting up and stretching. Her last mentor had, as far as the Clan knew, been killed by a wandering rogue, and she hadn't been appointed with a new mentor yet. So, she had no one to train her or hunt with her. Twilightpaw knew this, and, feeling bad for her since he assumed that his father was like a father for her too, decided somewhere in his tiny naive mind that this meant they had to stick together. Or something. Twilightpaw was odd. Naive, and odd.

"M'kay, meet me by the entrance!" He turned around to run out, but then turned back and added, "Let's eat when we get back. There's a decent amount of fresh kill left." Then he finally bounded out, leaving Twigpaw inside, trying to fathom why he wouldn't want to eat fresh-kill with a decent amount left.

Twilightpaw almost seemed like he was hiding too, hiding behind twilight's sun. Maybe one day Twigpaw would sneak a peak behind the sun and see if she could find Twilightpaw... even if he never gazed past the trees.

* * *

"Let's go near the ShadowClan border so we can get mice--but not too close, of course, 'cause y'know how picky those cats are about their border. I mean, honestly, you accidentally take a pawstep too close or over and they're all on you!"

Twigpaw let Twilightpaw rant, though she herself didn't get why her Clanmates always went on and on about other Clans' reactions to getting too close to a border. ThunderClan acted just the same when a cat got too close to their border; it was very hypocritical of them, really. But she kept her thoughts to herself, as she usually did, keeping herself dull and hidden.

"Oh!" Twilightpaw hissed, suddenly lowering himself in a crouch with his tail flat against the ground. Twigpaw mimicked him, and looked with narrowed eyes to see what prey he might have found. Before she herself could spot it, Twilightpaw pounced forward with outstretch claws to snatch a mouse hidden by fallen branches. It noticed him and ran, but he leapt again and grabbed his with his fangs. Then he looked towards Twigpaw, grinning with pride.

"Nice catch!" Twigpaw mewed, putting half-hearted enthusiasm into her voice. Twilightpaw seemed to not notice the lack of enthusiasm, and swiftly began to bury it while talking about how great his catch was. Twigpaw nodded her head every so often, letting out little mews of agreement and encouragement. It's not a hard thing to keep Twilightpaw talking, and Twigpaw herself didn't feel much like speaking so she encouraged his words to flow as they continued through the territory.

* * *

Twigpaw slowly padded into camp after Twilightpaw, carrying the rather plump pidgeon that she had caught. She supposed she should be feeling prouder over her catch, but since _that one day_, her emotions seemed to be getting duller and duller, until some of them she could hardly feel at all. But in the end, she really just didn't care anymore.

Twigpaw dropped the pidgeon at the fresh-kill pile, but didn't pick up anything to eat, she wasn't very hungry. Shrugging to herself, the tabby turned andd began walking towards the Apprentice's Den, but out of the corner of her eye she saw Birdpaw stopping mid-step from going to the den and starting to fidget as he saw her. Twigpaw gave no notion that she saw this, and continued padding into the den where she curled up and peeked into her memories.

_She looked up suddenly with narrowed eyes; she was just turning to pad off to ThunderClan and leave the body for some other cat to find, but she thought she heard something. Turning her head to the side she scanned the trees, but she didn't see anything out of the ordinary and figured it to be a squirrel._

Squeezing her eyes shut and thinking harder, Twigpaw realized with dread that she had seen something, but had passed it off as a shadow. Birdpaw and his night-black pelt had been hiding under a tree. Twigpaw had been careless and ignored the too-dark shadow.

Twigpaw didn't care if she was found out, but the thing about that was that no one would believe her about _that one time_, and the other times that had followed until she had snapped. Twigpaw wouldn't be able to stand having them banish her for lying and murder, lying when she wasn't. She hated it when cats didn't believe her.

So the yellow-eyed Birdpaw simply had to go.

* * *

Birdpaw was stupid. Simple as that, he had to be absolutely _idiotic_ to think that Twigpaw wouldn't have noticed him. She had to stifle a snort as she stalked him through the woods, as he took a careless stroll. His mentor had told him to hunt, but he hadn't even tried hunting once yet. Birdpaw simply padded through the woods, pouncing on the fallen leaves of leaf-fall every so often. What a lazybones!

ThunderClan obviously wouldn't have much of a loss when he was gone.

_Now, Birdpaw, where will you pause? When will you hesitate in a step for just a moment, just a moment long enough for me to pounce on you? Ah, you silly little cat, it looks like you're going to lay down. You fool. It's a pity you're only six moons, you might've done great things--but that's just a maybe, I s'ppose._

_There you go, lying down now, are we, my little black furred friend? You can't see me, can you? I'm hidden over here, just behind you, now to the side of you. I'm getting ready to pounce now, little Birdpaw. _

_Now, now, that didn't hurt much, did it? I'm sure the shock has numbed you a bit, and I'll slash out your throat easily, you're still the size of a kit. Slash, slash, see? Did that hurt much? No, I don't think so. You didn't even see me coming, did you? You didn't see me coming._

_I was hidden among the trees._

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I know, you guys reading my other stories are probably yelling at me right now. Something along the lines of "good frickin' god, another one? finish the ones you have! -___-;;", right? meh. i have another one, P3RF3CT, that will be put on the site in a week or two as well, so there. haha.

but, in the end, i am updating thirteen ways next chance i get. maybe sometime tomorrow, actually; it's just that i have to practice all day for a l33t piano accompaniment im doing tomorrow. :3

OI, HIT THAT REVIEW BUTTON! Even just saying "Update" makes me feel nice. :D

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